Broad Audit

so it would only make sense that eventually we’d start doing some music reviews. its after 2am on thursday night, i have nothing better to do. im gonna tell you what i think about my most recent album acquisition, Shook Ones/End of a Year split 7”.

before i get into this record let me say that i do like both of these bands… you wouldnt think so after you read what i have to say about this record.

i’ll start with End of a Year. for those who may not know them, they play a rare form of punk that isnt played/appreciated enough nowadays in todays punk rock scene. its a “revolution summer” vibe that gets compared to Rites of Spring and Embrace a lot, its a fair comparison. now the record…they only did one song. lame. it does ring in at over 5 minutes, but i dont want that from this band. i dont want it from any band really. the only good song thats over 5 minutes long is Boston- Foreplay/Long time. i just dont like this song. boring. long. same riff over and over. poor recording quality for them, but that may have even been intentional. while the vocals for this band have always seemed whiney to me ive never had a problem with them until hearing this song. it just got annoying. the song lacks energy and i dont think it is well written enough to just be the laid back chiller of a song that i think they were going for.

no onto Shook Ones… this band dubbed themselves a Kid Dynamite/Lifetime worship band and its exactly what they are. this record is no different. short, fast, melodic punk songs, full of “whoooaaooooo”s and sing a longs. they bring 4 songs ringing in at barely over 4 minutes total. once again im disappointed. these songs just seem thrown together for the sake of making a record. all of them, with the exception of “Asterisk”, just dont seem finished. i think they just tossed together 4 “fast” riffs and a couple melodic parts and went to the studio. it just seems like a really poor effort on both bands parts. i know theyre friends and they just wanted to do a record with their buddy bands but still, shouldnt you put some thought into the songs and make them good still? maybe i’ll be alone in this one, but i think these are the worst songs either band has done.

ok, so i bashed this record enough. i feel like i should say how i feel about both bands, excluding these bad songs, so it doesnt seem like im killing them. i really like both of these bands. end of a year play a style that you dont hear very much right now, and they play it well. ive seen them live a couple of times and their singer always has great things to say between songs whether its explaining lyrics or just talking about whatevers on his mind. it never sounds rehearsed or like some bullshit speech and i love that. theyre energetic and fun to watch play, and most of their songs are really well written and unique from what every other punk band is doing now. shook ones are no different, they are really fun guys. ive seen them play HUGE shows at fests and ive seen them play the smallest show and they act the same on stage no matter how many people are watching them. they just come to play. they were supposed to play norfolk last year on halloween and the show was shut down before they played, and outside jamie seagraves was joking with me about how they should just come play in our practice space and one of the band members overheard us and they all got really excited and wanted to do it. so they drove to chesapeake and played a storage shed to 15 people. thats awesome. most bands wouldve packed up with their nose in the air and said “fuck this town”, but they just wanted to play.

so in closing both of these bands are really good, but this record is terrible.

now i leave you with this…